What is Montogmery McFate up to these days?

Background: Montgomery McFate is an anthropologist whose dissertation was on the case study of the British counterinsurgency of Northern Ireland (1969-1982). McFate then went on to RAND and the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR). This is all on her website. She was the co-creator of the Human Terrain System ,an outside fix of the United States military lack of cultural knowledge during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Here’s the rub, the Human Terrain System was defunded and shuttered back in 2015. McFate just came out with a new book in 2018 and had a publication in the Small Wars & Insurgencies journal in late 2019.[1] The best actual account of all of these happenings are from McFates' fellow anthropologists who are quite critical of her militarising anthropology approach. Notably David Price and Roberto J. González have written the most on this subject.[2] Paul Joseph has the ‘fullest account’ of the HTS’ history.[3]

The other facet anthropologists fail to mention is the oft cited COIN guru, David Kilcullen. Kilcullen is unique because while being Australian, he became one of the masterminds behind FM 3-24 and the “Surge” campaign in Iraq and then Afghanistan. Kilcullen is now an independent contractor and has his own firm that can work with various governments. (Here’s his website) He’s slated in a couple weeks to make an appearance on the Irregular Warfare podcast. Should give more up to date account of what he’s been up to.

https://mwi.usma.edu/category/podcasts/irregular-warfare-podcast/

If I had to make a wager after the Human Terrain System was shuttered.

The HTs changed names and went out of the spotlight and is still continued in some form or another today. Gonzalez has identified the Global Cultural Knowledge Network (GCKN) as its likely successor but I’m assuming there could be others. “… defence firm CGI Federal – the same corporation that managed HTS in its final years – now manages GCKN.”[4]

Main Point of this Musing: What is current influence of cultural intelligence within these small wars (irregular warfare) umbrella? These two individuals are some of the most widely known and reported persons which have influenced current counterinsurgency doctrine. The fact that there has been a quieting of this idea speaks volumes to its significance. It has either gone out of vogue or its now a vital tool that is secretly being continued. Understanding this current vector of study is vitally important current geopolitics. The flipside that everyone is going to parroting for the next couple of decades is Great Power competition between the US, China and Russia yada yada yada. The irregular warfare MO will continue under the radar throughout much of the rest of the world while Think Tanks and Academics are focused on this overt threat. If no one’s looking or caring about this well then how will we know if this approach is working or not?

The economic element of this campaign will be increasingly difficult as the war over Africa’s economy is waged between China’s Belt and Road initiative and the World Bank and IMF efforts of lending to these countries. Whomever is best positioned in Africa economically will win the annoying phrase of great power competition. Irregular warfare will become vital within this competition as Counter-Terrorism, Democratic Policing, and international policing efforts continue to rise.

*Random Update 15/10/21 — Sean McFate is her husband and now writes realistic fiction about modern day mercenaries. Can be found on Amazon here.

[1] See a critical review of it here. David H. Price, “Military Anthropology: Soldiers, Scholars and Subjects at the Margins of Empire by Montgomery McFate (Review),” Anthropological Quarterly 92, no. 3 (2019): 969–74, https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2019.0049.

[2] David H. Price, Cold War Anthropology (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016); Roberto J. González, “Beyond the Human Terrain System: A Brief Critical History (and a Look Ahead),” Contemporary Social Science 15, no. 2 (April 2, 2020): 227–40, https://doi.org/10.1080/21582041.2018.1457171.

[3] Paul Joseph, “Soft” Counterinsurgency: Human Terrain Teams and US Military Strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2014), https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137401878_1.

[4] González, “Beyond the Human Terrain System,” 10.